In an age of advancing digitalization, sales and the internet belong together. This applies not only to online shops, whose business model is unthinkable without the internet, but to every company from the analog world as well. Purchasing processes, whether B2B or B2C, are today prepared online — often initiated and carried out there too. For companies, this means establishing visibility and optimizing their online channels in order to identify potential customers early.
The Customer, That Unknown Creature
The pivotal point of internet-based lead generation is the so-called customer journey. This marketing term describes the behavioral cycles customers go through before deciding to buy a product or service. While this is somewhat nebulous in the analog world, online behavior can be tracked very well using appropriate tracking methods.
From a marketing perspective, the so-called touchpoints — the points of contact between the potential customer and a brand, a product, and/or a company — are the entry point into lead generation. Each of these touchpoints offers an opportunity to generate leads or qualify existing ones, and thus the chance to turn prospects into customers. Important touchpoints could be, for example, signing up for a newsletter or requesting further information via email along with providing personal data.
The more purposefully a company can accompany potential customers on their customer journey, the more likely a purchase will ultimately result. All lead generation measures should therefore fit your own product offering and the respective touchpoint. Every point of contact should lead to coherent actions for the customer that help answer their questions. The more congruent the customer experiences the customer journey, the greater their willingness to make contact — with all the additional opportunities for lead generation this brings.
Trust Binds and Opens Doors
The goal, then, is to make the journey as informative and comfortable as possible for the customer, ideally garnished with a pinch of surprise. The be-all and end-all of a website should always be user-friendliness, also known as usability. What a website that meets these standards needs to look like always depends on web design trends, the technologies currently available, and the legal requirements for an online presence. If even basics such as privacy policies, contact options, or an error-free legal notice are neglected, the customer will probably abandon their customer journey early. Only when a website manages to convey trust is it suitable for generating or qualifying leads.
A website must meet these three criteria to generate leads:
-
Search engine optimized: The math is simple — no visitors, no leads, no customers. Wherever your potential customers search the internet for answers and inspiration, they should find your website. A company's web presence must therefore be able to answer customers' questions.
-
Visible: Alongside search engines, social media channels are crucial to being noticed online. Social media must always be considered when building the site and in all online marketing activities. Professional social media strategies lead to significant growth in visitors to the company website. This also applies to the offline world. The address of the landing page or company website must appear on every business card, in every brochure, and in all analog advertising materials.
-
Usable: The online world is fast and merciless. If a website can't impress and deliver answers within a few seconds, prospects and potential customers are gone again — in the worst case, for good. A company website, and especially the landing page in marketing campaigns, must be technically optimized and load fast. At first glance, it must be clear which product or service your company offers. All interactive elements such as newsletter sign-ups, brochure downloads, or contact options must be easily accessible and immediately recognizable. In short: customers must be able to find their way around the company website right away.
The Landing Page as the Center of Lead Generation
A well-built landing page is indispensable and mission-critical for lead generation marketing campaigns. All accompanying online and offline measures should direct prospects to this one page and move them to take further action — prospects should become customers. The conversion rate metric describes the success of these measures.
For a landing page to fulfill this task, you should keep these 10 points in mind:
-
Ensure a clear and simple structure (usability)
-
Make sure the code is responsive
-
Put your product or service clearly at the center
-
Place the most important information at the top
-
Communicate clearly and understandably
-
Reduce the menu and the exit options
-
Avoid all content that distracts from the offer
-
Design a simple form for lead generation
-
Invite a clearly defined action (call to action)
-
Observe the legal requirements of the GDPR.
If all these points are implemented, nothing stands in the way of successful lead generation and an increase in your conversion rate.
The Path to Action
When is a lead a lead? This question is often answered very differently by marketing and sales. For marketing, the start of the customer journey can already lead to quality leads, whereas sales wants data from prospects with genuine purchase intent. In between usually lies a path that requires various lead generation measures. To avoid disagreements within the company, precise goals should be defined.
This also makes the possible touchpoints for the call to action clearer. At the start there is usually the marketing lead — a website visitor who has signaled an initial interest in the product or service. Marketing's task is now to build a relationship and turn that interest into purchase intent — that is, to transform it into a so-called sales lead.
Low-threshold offers lend themselves well to this. That could be a free whitepaper, a newsletter sign-up, a product demo, or so-called freemium offers — the short-term free use of an otherwise paid offering. To avoid scaring off the prospect, only basic information such as email address and name should be requested. With a simply designed online form, place of residence can be added as well. The marketing lead is then supplied with further information that always encourages further actions. In analog practice, at least in B2B marketing, the so-called BANT method has become established for this. BANT stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Time. The principle is, in part, just as applicable to lead generation on the internet.
Newsletters Should Offer Added Value
A gold mine of internet lead generation, and practically the classic, can be your own newsletter. To win over website visitors and prospects here, a newsletter must offer real added value — ideally more than just a pure product pitch. Then the advantages of a newsletter can be fully played out. It offers an inexpensive solution to generate leads, qualify leads, accompany prospects on their customer journey, and create new touchpoints.
Newsletter statistics are the ideal tool to continuously review and repeatedly adjust these measures. The open rate gives a first insight into whether the newsletter is being well received by readers at all. If it's too low, improving the subject line can help, for example. But only in combination with the click rate does it become clear whether the content is also of interest to the target audience. It should be at least 3 percent. The number of subscribers who unsubscribe from the newsletter is also revealing. If it's too high, this is a clear sign of the wrong approach and/or the wrong content. When these analytical insights are used to adjust the strategy, sales leads can also be generated from marketing leads.
Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
Constant review and adjustment also apply to the landing page. While every customer ticks differently, undesirable developments can be identified and corrected. The focus should be placed not only on quantity but above all on the quality of the leads. In practice, different landing pages can be tested for their effectiveness with a so-called A/B test. Two versions of a landing page are put online that differ in details. That could be a different photo, a different call to action, or differently designed forms. With the help of analytics tools, the more advantageous page can then be determined. But be careful: it's not about favoring the page that generates more leads at first glance — they have to be the "right" leads. Insights from the test should be used, but tested again and again. Online lead generation is therefore a permanent process of adjustment.